Joe Lansdale - The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

They went over there and found a spot about the size of a boxing ring. Down below them on each side were heaps of bodies and heaps of gulls on the bodies, scrambling for soft flesh and eyeballs. McBride studied the bodies, what was left of Galveston, turned to Jack, said, “Fuck the rules.”

They waded into each other, bare knuckle. It was obvious after only moments that they were exhausted. They were throwing hammers, not punches, and the sounds of their strikes mixed with the caws and cries of the gulls. McBride ducked his head beneath Jack’s chin, drove it up. Jack locked his hands behind McBride’s neck, kneed him in the groin.

They rolled on the ground and in the mud, then came apart. They regained their feet and went at it again. Then the sounds of their blows and the shrieks of the gulls were overwhelmed by a cry so unique and savage, they ceased punching.

“Time,” Jack said.

“What in hell is that?” McBride said.

They walked toward the sound of the cry, leaned on the great support post. Once a fine house had stood here, and now, there was only this. McBride said, “I don’t know about you, nigger, but I’m one tired sonofabitch.”

The cry came again. Above him. He looked up. A baby was nailed near the top of the support. Its upraised, nailed arm was covered in caked blood. Gulls were flapping around its head, making a kind of halo.

“I’ll be goddamned,” Jack said. “Boost me, McBride.”

“What?”

“Boost me.”

“You got to be kidding.”

Jack lifted his leg. McBride sighed, made a stirrup with his cupped hands, and Jack stood, got hold of the post and worked his way painfully up. At the bottom, McBride picked up garbage and hurled it at the gulls.

“You gonna hit the baby, you jackass,” Jack said.

When he got up there, Jack found the nail was sticking out of the baby’s wrist by an inch or so. He wrapped his legs tight around the post, held on with one arm while he took hold of the nail and tried to work it free with his fingers. It wouldn’t budge.

“Can’t get it loose,” Jack yelled down. He was about to drop; his legs and arms had turned to butter.

“Hang on,” McBride said, and went away.

It seemed like forever before he came back. He had the revolver with him. He looked up at Jack and the baby. He looked at them for a long moment. Jack watched him, didn’t move. McBride said, “Listen up, nigger. Catch this, use it to work out the nail.”

McBride emptied the remaining cartridges from the revolver and tossed it up. Jack caught it on the third try. He used the trigger guard to snag the nail, but mostly mashed the baby’s wrist. The baby had stopped crying. It was making a kind of mewing sound, like a dying goat.

The nail came loose, and Jack nearly didn’t grab the baby in time and when he did, he got hold of its nailed arm and he felt and heard its shoulder snap out of place. He was weakening, and he knew he was about to fall.

“McBride,” he said, “catch.”

The baby dropped and so did the revolver. McBride reached out and grabbed the child. It screamed when he caught it, and McBride raised it over his head and laughed. He laid the baby on top of a pile of wide lumber and looked at it.

Jack was about halfway down the post when he fell, landing on his back, knocking the wind out of him. By the time he got it together enough to get up and find the revolver and wobble over to McBride, McBride had worked the child’s shoulder back into place and was cooing to him.

Jack said, “He ain’t gonna make it. He’s lost lots of blood.”

McBride stood up with the baby on his shoulder. He said, “Naw. He’s tough as a warthog. Worse this little shit will have is a scar. Elastic as he is, there ain’t no real damage. And he didn’t bleed out bad neither. He gets some milk in him, fifteen, sixteen years from now, he’ll be chasin’ pussy. Course, best thing is, come around when he’s about two and go on and kill him. He’ll just grow up to be men like us.”

McBride held the child out and away from him, looked him over. The baby’s penis lifted and the child peed all over him. McBride laughed uproariously.

“Well, shit, nigger. I reckon today ain’t my day, and it ain’t the day you and me gonna find out who’s the best. Here. I don’t know no one here. Take ‘em.”

Jack took the child, gave McBride his revolver, said, “I don’t know there’s anyone I know anymore.”

“I tell you, you’re one lucky nigger,” McBride said. “I’m gonna forgo you a beating, maybe a killing.”

“That right?”

“Uh-huh. Someone’s got to tote this kid to safety, and if’n I kept him, I might get tired of him in an hour. Put his little head underwater.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?”

“I might. And you know, you’re a fool to give me back my gun.”

“Naw. I broke it gettin’ that nail loose.”

McBride grinned, tossed the gun in the mud, shaded his eyes, and looked at the sky. “Can you beat that? Looks like it’s gonna be a nice day.”

Jack nodded. The baby sucked on his shoulder. He decided McBride was right. This was one tough kid. It was snuggled against him as if nothing had happened, trying to get milk. Jack wondered about the child’s family. Wondered about his own. Where were they? Were they alive?

McBride grinned, said, “Nigger, you got a hell of an uppercut.” Then he turned and walked away.

Jack patted the baby’s back, watched McBride find his razor, then walk on. Jack watched him until he disappeared behind a swell of lumber and bodies, and he never saw him again.

There were three hunters and three dogs. The hunters had shiny shotguns, warm clothes, and plenty of ammo. The dogs were each covered in big, blue spots and were sleek and glossy and ready to run. No duck was safe.

The hunters were Clyde Barrow, James Clover, and little Freddie Clover, who was only fifteen and very excited to be asked along. However, Freddie did not really want to see a duck, let alone shoot one. He had never killed anything but a sparrow with his BB gun and that had made him sick. But he was nine then. Now he was ready to be a man. His father told him so.

With this hunt he felt he had become part of a secret organization. One that smelled of tobacco smoke and whiskey breath; sounded of swear words, talk about how good certain women were, the range and velocity of rifles and shotguns, the edges of hunting knives, the best caps and earflaps for winter hunting.

In Mud Creek the hunt made the man.

Since Freddie was nine he had watched with more than casual interest, how when a boy turned fifteen in Mud Creek, he would be invited to The Hunting Club for a talk with the men. Next step was a hunt, and when the boy returned he was a boy no longer. He talked deep, walked sure, had whiskers bristling on his chin, and could take up with the assurance of not being laughed at, cussing, smoking, and watching women’s butts as a matter of course.

Freddie wanted to be a man too. He had pimples, no pubic hair to speak of (he always showered quickly at school to escape derisive remarks about the size of his equipment and the thickness of his foliage), scrawny legs, and little, gray, watery eyes that looked like ugly planets spinning in white space.

And truth was, Freddie preferred a book to a gun.

But came the day when Freddie turned fifteen and his father came home from the Club, smoke and whiskey smell clinging to him like a hungry tick, his face slightly dark with beard and tired-looking from all-night poker.

He came into Freddie’s room, marched over to the bed where Freddie was reading THOR , clutched the comic from his son’s hands, sent it fluttering across the room with a rainbow of comic panels.